Posts in 'Eco Moms'

Imagine this scene: Some maniacs have tied your children to a train track–then hopped on the train, released the brakes, and sent a mighty engine roaring down the track. Right for your children.

That’s what’s going on in Washington DC right now.

The train is, literally, the TRAIN Act of 2011, and next week, the House will vote on a bill (HR 1705) that was designed to cripple Clean Air Act regulations and intimidate the Environmental Protection Agency. The TRAIN Act requires a committee of cabinet secretaries to re-analyze the costs of public health protections. That’s right: RE-analyze. For a third time. Because when a bill is introduced, its costs are analyzed during the comment period, and again by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The TRAIN ACT is busy work for politicians whose stated goal is to block any and all environmental protections–no matter what the cost to our children’s health. Mercury, lead, arsenic, acid gases–these are the poisons spewing from coal plants that EPA, in any administration, is required by law, under the Clean Air Act, to regulate. These are regulations that save hundreds of thousands of lives, and cut health care costs by trillions of dollars.

On top of it all, polluters and politicians want you to believe that regulations kill jobs and cripple the economy. This is absolutely untrue.

We do not have to choose between jobs and clean air. We can have both.

Air pollution isn’t just dirty. It is poisonous.As a mom, I’m furious–and you should be too. Politicians can play politics with each other all they want. But they cannot play politics with my children.

Parents have a chance to make a difference, this week and next. Mothers’ voices will make a difference. Let Washington know that you are paying attention. Let Washington know that you want pollution to be controlled. Let Washington know that clean air saves lives.

Write to your representatives and let them know that they must stop that TRAIN speeding towards our children. Tell them to stop playing politics with our children.

It is puzzling that the protective maternal instinct doesn't extend to the public world, where politicians and corporations make decisions that have huge impact on our children’s health.

I've been thinking a lot about this recently, while working on the launch of a new campaign called Moms Clean Air Force. Our goal is to use the power of blogs and other online communications to reach out to, and energize, mothers and mothers-to-be — the people who have the most at stake in protecting the strength of the Clean Air Act.

The Clean Air Act is one of the jewels in the crown of our democratic process. Since 1970, when it was signed into law by President Richard Nixon, the Clean Air Act has made it possible to make enormous progress in cleaning up air and water pollution. It is one of the best, most effective environmental regulations ever passed.

Last month, the EPA released new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which have been in the planning for twenty years. These standards will ensure that all coal-fired power plants cut down their emissions of poisons like mercury, lead, arsenic, and other toxicants. These plants are responsible for most of the toxic emissions fouling our air. The technology to clean the emissions exists — and it is cost effective.

But some powerful polluters and politicians in Congress are trying to gut funding for the EPA and weaken the Clean Air Act, including the new standards. "They are trying to unravel the legal fabric that has protected the health and safety of our families and our neighborhoods from dangerous air pollution for over forty years," warns Vickie Patton, EDF's chief legal counsel. "We face an unprecedented assault on vital, time-tested clean air protections for our children."

Supporters and opponents of the standards can comment on the proposed regulations. During this comment period, we must send a simple message to polluters, the politicians they work with — and to those who oppose them and need our support: We share the air. Keep it clean.

Dominique with her son, nephews & niece.

Over the past twenty years, scientists have learned more and more about the poisonous effects of air pollution. And it is most poisonous of all to the most helpless among us. Fetuses — whose brain architecture is still developing — and infants and toddlers are terribly vulnerable to the neurotoxins being spewed into our air.

The political threat to the Clean Air Act, combined with our growing understanding of the health dangers associated with pollution, make this what Patton calls "a defining moment" for our country. "Moms and dads, grandparents, uncles and aunts," Patton says, "all of us must reaffirm our commitment to healthy children, and clean air in America."

Everyone knows how vigilant moms can be in protecting their babies. There's endless activity online, in blogs, tweets, and Facebook postings, to prove it. Whether moms are looking for the right baby bottles, or having a sleeping schedule crisis, or confused about bed-sharing, help is a click away.

So it is puzzling that the same protective maternal instinct doesn't extend to the public world, where politicians and corporations often make decisions that have the greatest impact — for better and for worse — on our children's health.

There is actually very little in the blogosphere that directly addresses the political issues that should be of great concern to families — truly enormous challenges like toxic chemical reform, global warming, food safety, air and water pollution.

Moms Clean Air Force is dedicated to doing something about the pollution. We want to bring the power of moms — their numbers, their passion, their determination to keep their children safe — to bear on polluters and the politicians who endanger the health of our children.

Meet the Moms

A powerhouse group of bloggers have joined the campaign for clean air.

When I began to talk to mom bloggers in the green community about our efforts, I was surprised by some of the responses. "Oh, we're not into advocacy." "We can’t do anything that would upset our sponsors." "Advertising dollars are too important to jeopardize."

Surprised? I was stunned. It was like the old days in the magazine industry, the days when we argued about whether or not to carry cigarette advertising, and if we did carry it, we argued about whether or not to run a story that made the advertiser so angry they would pull their expensive pages.

I began to wonder why people have become so wary of being viewed as "political"? What are we afraid of? What kind of sponsors would be upset by association with mothers who are fighting for clean air and water? In fact, why wouldn't they be using their political clout — and joining in? Surely the rapidly growing number of corporations that have publicly committed themselves to sustainability would understand the benefits of sound environmental regulations.

I also began to wonder what good does it do for any of us to buy "green" diapers, and BPA free bottles, and CFL bulbs, if we don't also attack our problems on a much larger scale?

All our individual choices won't make a dent in addressing toxic chemicals, or climate change, or air and water pollution, if we don't safeguard the regulations — and the government's power to enforce them — that make our world a better place. The only way to do this is to become politically active. That's at the heart of what it means to be a citizen in a democratic society.

At Moms Clean Air Force we've identified a wonderful, independent group of mom bloggers, and a dad, too, from all over the country. More bloggers join in everyday. Now we need more moms to make this movement powerful. We need to fight for clean air, by blogging, phoning, letter-writing, tweeting, and posting on Facebook pages — and marching if we must.

"We're just moms. We can't change the world," someone told me.

But we can. We're the ones who care fiercely about keeping our children safe. And when we're up against the billions of dollars being spent by the polluters, our determined hearts are our best weapons. They're pretty powerful. Now let's use them.

What You Can Do

Yes! Prop 23—a proposal in California, underwritten by Texas oil companies, to repeal the strongest clean energy law in the nation—was resoundingly defeated on Election Day. But apart from that victory, media pundits seem to believe that around the country, environmentalists and their concerns were soundly trounced. I think they are reading the wrong tea leaves.

The Tea Party may be full of science Luddites, but there's another important activist group in the U.S. and it is growing fast. It isn't run by anyone, and has no political candidates—yet. I'm calling it the Green Tea Party, and it is made up of millions of women I think of as Eco Moms. It is going to be–it is already–a game changer.

I count myself among these women. EcoFocus Worldwide, a marketing research consultant, estimates that "the EcoAware Moms market includes more than 50 million women, 69% of [all] moms, and has more than $1.45 trillion in buying power." Best of all, consumer power can translate to political clout.

Most of us wouldn't say we're out to save the planet. And we don't walk around numb with fear, gloomy about the future. Raising children is anxiety-provoking enough. But we want change. We want global warming addressed. We want to protect our homes from toxic chemicals. We want the government to which we pay our taxes to keep our families safe.

Eco Moms teach our children not to keep the water running while they brush their teeth, to switch off the lights when they leave the room, to walk or bike to a friend's house, to unplug chargers and shut off computers at night, not to let the engine idle at the mall. We're about small actions that, within a family, express simple values: cherish natural resources; keep the world clean.

"Our children are growing up differently than we did," says Lori Yanes, an Eco Mom from West Orange, N.J., who has three sons. "If I forget to recycle something, my kids are all over me. Being green is a way of life for them."

These days, the news is full of reports that our lives are awash in toxic chemicals. They are hidden in plastics, in detergents, in beauty products, in foods—things no one worried about a generation ago. While there is only so much we can do, as individuals, about climate change, there is a great deal we can do about day to day pollution—especially exposure to toxic chemicals, whether they're in baby shampoo, or in a child's bracelet.

I had spent the summer ridding my own house of plastics with BPA (including those microwave popcorn bags with plastic liners), explaining to my sons the damage this chemical, an endocrine disrupter, can cause and how it can leach into food from plastic that is heated. BPA has even been found in some of the thermal paper used for cash register receipts—and it rubs off on our hands.

BPA is only one of many toxins we're bringing into our homes. Every day, Eco Moms are learning about problems with chemicals, networking for advice and information about safe products. New websites and new support communities are springing up to keep us informed about the latest findings.

Judy Shils qualifies as one of the world's most devoted and influential Eco Moms, and her work provides a model of how values are transmitted to the next generation. In 2005, while she was setting up the Marin Cancer Project to investigate why cancer rates there were soaring, she began working with a group of teenagers who were interested in what toxins were lurking in their beauty products. Teens for Safe Cosmetics played a key role in the passage of the California Safe Cosmetics Act in October 2005, and the Toxic Toys Bill in 2007.

To take on broader issues, Shils also founded Teens Turning Green which engages young people from 12 years old through college age. The student-led movement started around her kitchen table in the Bay Area and now has a presence in schools across the country.

"There is a tremendous surge of green energy coming from Moms these days—and now it is coming from their girls, too," says Shils. "We have an opportunity to mentor and support a new generation of change makers, and wow, are these young women ever powerful! When they see an injustice, they want to fix it. They will heal the world."

The power of Eco Moms extends beyond idealism. We also have enormous purchasing power, especially when it comes to deciding what products we allow in the house. Increasingly, we are demanding stuff that is safe and respectful of our values. The result? So-called "green" product lines are proliferating.

Ten years ago, there was usually one choice: go to a health food store and look for Seventh Generation. Today some of the biggest brands in household products have started green, natural lines. Gerber introduced Gerber Organic Baby Food. White Cloud has Green Earth bathroom tissue, and even Scott tissue is up to 40% recycled in their "Naturals" line. A couple of years ago Clorox launched its Greenworks line (the company also bought Burt's Bees).

But there's also been a tsunami of bogus or misleading green claims to go with this shift, and it can be hard to sort out the truth. It's instructive, then, to see how clear Clorox has made its Greenworks labels. (I learned that the secret cleaning ingredient in their products, alkyl polyglucoside, is extracted from coconuts.) And the Greenworks website is a model of communication; it is upbeat, even humorous, and offers easy tips for keeping unnecessary chemicals out of the house.

Manufacturers are going to the trouble of appealing to Eco Moms for a reason: they are influential early adopters of products. If we buy what you're selling, you are likely to profit from the connection. The lesson for Eco Moms is that our everyday decisions are important. They give us a sense of control over our environment, a way to feel we are making smart choices, doing something good for ourselves and our planet. But these decisions also acquire critical mass in the commercial world.

Yes, rampant consumerism is part of the problem. Too much of what we buy is disposable or just wasteful. But the rising power of Eco Moms gives me hope for a change in values. We are asking, in hundreds of different ways, for healthier, more sustainable choices. And we are getting answers. But with the counterproductive regulations in place now, we cannot know the full extent of harmful chemical exposure from the products we use daily.

Now it is time to leverage consumer power into legislative clout. We have to make our voices heard in Congress. Let the new 112th Congress know that Eco Moms want immediate reform of our scandalously inadequate chemical safety laws. It is up to us to make sure that the laws that are supposed to protect us from toxic chemicals actually do. We can get this done in 2011: Never underestimate the power of mothers of nature!

Help Protect Your Family from Dangerous Toxic Chemicals

Please stand up for the health of your family by joining thousands of concerned moms, dads and others in signing this pledge and telling Congress to strengthen our toxic chemicals standards. We will deliver your pledge along with the thousands of others to the new Congress when it's sworn in next year.

As a constituent and a concerned...

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I am deeply troubled by the exposure of my...

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...to dangerous toxic chemicals, which are in everything from computers to carpets to clothing to couches.

These chemicals are so ubiquitous that every American alive today has hundreds of them flowing in our blood stream. And yet, America's main chemical safety law has never been significantly amended since it was adopted 34 years ago. As it is currently designed, this law does almost as much to ensure we are exposed to toxic chemicals as it does to protect us.

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